Countries in the Pacific and South America have downgraded their tsunami alerts after avoiding the worst following one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded.
The magnitude-8.8 tremor off Russia's far east coast was the largest since 2011, when a magnitude-9.1 quake and subsequent tsunami struck off Japan, killing more than 15,000 people.
Chile changed its advice to a "state of caution" for San Félix Island and Easter Island, meaning people should move inland, avoid maritime activities, and listen to local authorities, but no mass evacuations were necessary.
Ecuador and Columbia have also cancelled their tsunami wanings, and advised coastal communities to follow local authorities' advice as some areas could experience small tidal fluctuations.
Ecuador's Galapagos Islands had cancelled coastal school classes and ordered precautionary evacuations to safe zones due to the risk, while Colombian officials had ordered the complete closure and evacuation of beaches and low-tide areas, and restricted maritime traffic.
People in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia were able to return home after the waves that arrived were smaller than expected and authorities lifted their tsunami warning.
The High Commission of the Republic in French Polynesia said the waves reached 1.5 metres high, down from a forecast of up to 4 metres, but residents should remain cautious.
Earlier, French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on X that the military was on stand-by to assist with potential emergency rescue efforts and medical evacuations.
Russian volcano erupts after quake
A Russian geological monitoring service said the Klyuchevskoy volcano on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula began erupting after Wednesday's powerful earthquake in the Pacific.
In a statement posted on Telegram, the Russian Academy of Sciences's United Geophysical Service said a hot lava flow was observed on the volcano's western slope.
It also noted explosions above the volcano.
[NEW MAP WITH VOLCANO]Klyuchevskoy is one of the highest volcanoes in the world, sitting almost 5,000 metres above sea level, and it has erupted several times in recent years.
The earthquake caused a tsunami that flooded the port town of Severo-Kurilsk, crashing through the port area and submerging the local fishing plant, officials said.
Authorities said the population of about 2,000 people had been evacuated.
The quake injured several people in Russia, state media reported, but none seriously.
"The walls were shaking," a Kamchatka resident told state media Zvezda.
"It's good that we packed a suitcase. There was one with water and clothes near the door. We quickly grabbed it and ran out … It was very scary."
Later on Wednesday, the authorities in the Kamchatka Peninsula announced the tsunami warning had been lifted.
Pacific countries largely downgrade tsunami threat
Authorities have warned that the risk of dangerous waves or swells could last for hours in some areas of the Pacific, despite the worst seemingly being avoided.
New Zealand's National Emergency Management Agency warned of strong and unusual currents in all coastal areas of the North Island, Great Barrier Island, the South Island, Stewart Island and the Chatham Islands.
A number of other Pacific nations, including Samoa and American Samoa, had tsunami advisories in place on Wednesday night, local time.
Those advisories warned of sea level fluctuations and strong currents that could be a hazard on beaches, in harbours and in coastal waters.
The Cook Islands, Tonga and Fiji cancelled their tsunami warnings late on Wednesday night.
However, much of the American west coast, spanning California, Oregon, Washington state, and the Canadian province of British Columbia, remained under a tsunami advisory.
Japan tsunami warning cancelled
Some 2 million people were initially told to evacuate to safety in Japan after the quake, and many left by car or on foot to higher ground.
People flocked to evacuation centres in affected areas of Japan.
The incident brought back memories of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that caused reactor meltdowns at a nuclear power plant, but no operational abnormalities at Japan's nuclear plants were reported.
One woman was killed as she drove her car off a cliff as she tried to escape, local media reported.
A 1.3-metre high tsunami reached a port in the northern prefecture of Iwate, Japan's weather agency said.
By Wednesday evening, the agency had downgraded its tsunami alerts, issued for much of the archipelago, to advisories.
Officials from countries with a Pacific coastline in North and South America — including the United States, Mexico and Colombia — issued warnings to avoid threatened beaches and low-lying areas.
In Hawaii, Governor Josh Green said flights in and out of the island of Maui had been cancelled as a precaution.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center later downgraded the alert for Hawaii to an advisory, and local authorities cancelled a coastal evacuation order.
Aftershocks likely after massive quake
Wednesday's quake was the strongest in the Kamchatka region since 1952, the regional seismic monitoring service said, warning of aftershocks of up to magnitude-7.5.
The epicentre is in roughly the same location as a magnitude-9.0 quake that year that caused a Pacific-wide tsunami, according to the US Geological Survey.
The organisation said Wednesday's earthquake was one of the 10 strongest ever recorded.
The tremor occurred on what was known as a "megathrust fault", where the denser Pacific Plate is sliding underneath the lighter North American Plate, scientists said.
The Pacific Plate had been on the move, making the Kamchatka Peninsula area off Russia's far east coast, where it struck, especially vulnerable to such tremors — and bigger aftershocks could not be ruled out, they said.
At least 10 aftershocks above magnitude-5 have already been recorded, and they could continue for months, warned Caroline Orchiston, director of the Centre for Sustainability at the University of Otago in New Zealand.
"This demonstrates that large-magnitude earthquakes generate aftershock sequences that start immediately, and some of these can be damaging in their own right," she said.
The magnitude-8.8 event on Wednesday came less than two weeks after a magnitude-7.4 earthquake in the same area, which has now been identified as a "foreshock".
ABC/wires
